A CurtainUp Berkshires ReviewEvolution
It begins with a college thesis on evolution by Henry Tollman (Matt McGrath), the son of a
college professor who raised him literate, but pop-culturally illiterate. The thesis not going well .
Except for its novel aim to write it without using the letter "e" it's, as his professor puts it,
"as unfocused as ginger ale without fizz. " On the other hand Henry's relationship with an art
student symbolically named Hope (Marin Hinkle) is sexy and promising enough for a spring
break visit to meet her family in Los Angeles.

After a sexy plane ride to the West Coast Henry and Hope's love story evolves into a
triangle in which the vulnerable
innocent abroad Henry becomes the pawn between Hope and her modern Mephistopheles of a
brother Ernie (Justin Kirk). With Ernie to lead him down the rabbit hole, Henry's inventive wit
(of which the attempt at e-less writing was a portent ) finds its focus by metamorphosing into
Eve-olution a super successful sitcom.

Welcome to another in the ever-growing list of stage and screen fables about that triumvirate
of corruption -- money, power and fame -- luring those with a bent for less trivial pursuits
capable of into the quicksand of sleaze. It is a world ruled by men in suits who dominate
the movie and television industry. It is a world in
which Darwin's ground breaking book is a "historic blip" relegated to the back of the big bus
driven and owned by the likes of Madonna. Its language is laden with more show-biz
references than a pizza with all the trimmings.

Sherman has also invented one of the best narrators to grace a stage in a long time. In this
world premiere, snappily staged by Nicho"las Martin, Dylan Baker brings this juicy role to its full
realization. His "homage to Peter Sellers includes periodic stints as storytelling host, as well
as some of the play's best characters. These include Hope's father, a
psychologist with his own share of hangups in need of analysis and a TV producer .br>
The actors playing the other characters also do full justice to their parts. Matt McGrath's
Henry is persuasively vulnerable -- first to love, then to the lure of power and finally to frustrated
rage. His transformation from pop-cultural naïf, to "Pretty Woman" who likes success and
wants an Emmy is almost scary in its conviction. Marin Hinkle, who was a pivotal asset in the
recent Berkshire Theatre Festival's Transit of Venus (see link), again gives a fine
performance.
Her Hope Braverman needs all the qualities implicit in her first and last name to cope with her
dysfunctional relatives -- absent mother, father with a penchant for phone sex and, last and most
awful, her pill-popping, lay-about brother Ernie who sees Henry as his ticket to Lotus Land
fame.

Justin Kirk's portrait of Ernie translates the term sleaze bucket into monstrous reality.
His
nasal emissions of sarcastic wit and wisdom spew forth like venom from a cobra. He shrugs off
a college diploma as "just an $80,000 paper airplane." When Henry hankers for critical respect
for Eve-olution he shrugs off television critics "nothing more than robbers to the
Mafia." To Ernie ambition, not Darwin is evolution and that ambition is inextricably
tied to shlock.

The minor actors round out the ensemble excellence. Sam Breslin Wright embodies the
toadying studio "Suit". Phone sex is just another role to play for success hungry young
actress portrayed by Anna Belknap.

Why with all this good acting and highly charged, high tech staging does the play
Evolution end
up with the same lack of fizz as Henry's thesis on the same subject? The answer resides in
the second act's shift from
comedy to morality play. On this more serious note, Sherman does write one powerful scene .
Henry, now rich enough
to own a valuable Darwin letter instead of writing a paper about the man is confronted by Hope
who accuses him of having "learned to
rationalize bullshit." This leads Henry to finally come to grips with the effect of his father's
breakdown and institutionalization. With the
exception of that scene, however, the shifting of the gears from comedy to sermonizing does
little to enlist one's sympathy for what happens to any of these people. br>As Henry finally
attacks Ernie and yells "Where's my diploma?"
you may, like me, find yourself paraphrasing his question with: "Where's the emotional payoff in
all this?"